I knew two folks with asthma who started smoking to stop the attacks.
When my kids were little I was the "sterile" mom. Both my kids had asthma. When I sent them to stay for the summers with their smoking, wood stove burning, dozen cats, play in the hay mound grandma, the asthma would clear up. Within two weeks of coming home, they'd be wheezing again. I started smoking (not related to their health), got a couple of cats, insisted that they go outside and get dirty at least twice a week and stopped bleaching everything. Neither of them ever had another attack.
Same thing happened to my friend's daughter.
About five years ago workers began stuccoing the building I was living in. It took them two months and I had a *horrible* reaction to whatever they were spraying. The doctor was quite close to putting me in the hospital until they were done (we were living in Germany and I really had no other place to go), but they finished up right when we were at the breaking point. Inhalers helped a little. Breathing treatments, steroids, a half dozen other medicines just barely kept me going. But a cigarette... After a cigarette I was clear for a good half hour.
And one more thing... I've known dozens and dozens of smokers. I have never known a smoker who came down with lung cancer. I knew ONE who got emphysema at the age of 89 after smoking 2 packs a day of Camel filterless since he was 9 years old. He quit smoking (due to the illness) and died of a UTI five years later at the age of 94. NINTY FOUR! Crap! I'll take it!
I'm not saying that it doesn't happen, but I just don't believe that it's as common as everyone wants us to think.
I hear you.